Tribes Review
Tribes (2008, Portfolio, Penguin Books), by Seth Godin is a short read that follows an idiosyncratic format of asides that highlights the who's who as well as the big and little how tos for being a leader and building what he calls tribes—a collective group of like minded people that are joined by a belief or idea. The formatting of this book reads like a long run on sentence at times and the pacing has a stylised quality that feels too clever for its conceits but Godin is set on it from cover to end and throughout, he gives insights and at moments helpful aspirations and inspirations.
The largest standout message this reader got from the book was the evaluation of work and how it is not enough to be just working for say a factory or a company. To just be a busy-bee-cog in the machine of the apparatus of production but to face “fear” (a word he pushes against) in order to be a new type of worker and thinker. The concept of the heretic is one that Goldin pushes to the fore throughout the book and this is something that is fundamental to wanting to be not only a better worker but a better thinker. And if one wants to be innovative, being heretical in the way one approaches marketing, social media and the like seems, at least in Godin’s view, not only desirable but necessary. To do so would bring value to the person who is working on behalf of it and also for those it is intended for.
Another concept that is foundational in this text is the concept of marketing as a means to tell stories. The power of marketing is taking ideas and making them manifest and energized tools to not only to sell things, products, but to sell ideas, politics, movemements. This is also where the role of the leader comes into play. “Great leaders create movements by empowering the tribe to communicate.” Gathering up the threads of stories and making them weave together to form concepts, ideas and beliefs is what elevates disparate words and thoughts into something bigger, powerful and necessary.
This also speaks to the difference between what is a crowd and what is a tribe. The crowd can be large and loud but they are not sustainable and impactful like a tribe. That can be thought of in how marketing strategies are structured and how social media responds. Sure, there may be a lot of likes or people ranting or raving about one thing or another but does it matter if it is just more noise, more clutter? Tribes and the marketing/social sharing that they do is far more impactful and enduring because it is about something deeper, a belief system and experiential cohesion. This message is one that anyone working within the marketing and social media landscape should make primary in their practices. It is not about pursuing sales and clicks but of creating conversion and conversations.
This book was written in 2008 and it does not feel dated per se but it feels a bit self aggrandized. Throughout the book there were sprinklings of examples of innovators, those that Godin seems to deem as worthy of being seen as a “leader” in their respective fields. Although this is a helpful device, there was something that this reader found reductive to the overall messaging throughout the book. One, they seemed predominantly male, white and Western in their sampling. Two, there was an overarching ‘just do it’ mentality that pervades throughout this book that seems to disregard, or simply does not take into account out of lack of perspective, larger social and economic factors that make being a leader of tribes more complex and with greater hurdles. There is a liberty and freedom to be able to go against the status quo. But that suggests that you are already in the status in some way. There is a huge gap of access to who even gets into that circle, albeit it is one that is marred and stagnant in thought leadership. This book acts like a wake up call for those that are already gatekeepers, or even at least receptionists to the world of marketing and business, but what about those that are completely kept out? That is something that this reader finds unimaginative about this book and something that anyone who wants to be a change agent must factor in. If one wants to inspire new ways of thinking they must also recognize and use access to power to widen who can even become a leader and who has the foundational support to build a tribe.